


(never) Let Me Go

by blue like winter (bleucommelhiver)



Series: in the darkness of night [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV (2016), Mentions of PTSD, Pre-Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV, hopefully more fluff than angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2017-09-20
Packaged: 2018-12-31 23:37:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12143586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bleucommelhiver/pseuds/blue%20like%20winter
Summary: He doesn’t shut his eyes like he used to, doesn’t look away when the Magitek’s axe splits his sister’s skull apart, doesn’t look away as the blood pools into dirt, gray matter peeking through skin, bones, and beautiful, beautiful soft brown hair.It takes a life-threatening situation for Nyx to come to terms with his feelings for you, even if he isn't ready to admit it.





	(never) Let Me Go

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt from @native-snowflake on tumblr. As per usual, I’m hopeless when it comes to pure fluff, so here’s some angst to go with it! I hope I somehow managed to hit the right fluffy balance.
> 
> This takes place in the same universe as **Wayward Children**. It can be considered a _prequel off shoot._

The nightmares, they always start the same. The smell of wet smoke rounded by the rot of entrails and waste; the taste of copper sharp and acrimonious upon his tongue. It’s all so familiar it no longer makes him gag.

He knows what happens next.

He can hear the gunfire cut through naked flesh before it happens. 

_‘Help!’_

He doesn’t turn around in panic like he used to.

He stands still.

Helpless.

Powerless.

 _Useless_.

His actions don’t affect the outcome; he knows that now.

_‘Help, mother!’_

He doesn’t shut his eyes like he used to, doesn’t look away when the Magitek’s axe splits his sister’s skull apart, doesn’t look away as the blood pools into dirt, gray matter peeking through skin, bones, and beautiful, beautiful soft brown hair.

 _Maybe, this time will be do the trick. Maybe, this time will hurt less_ , he thinks naively to himself.

It doesn’t.

It hurts just as much as the first and Nyx wakes in the dead of night gasping with tears in his eyes.

The nightmares, they always start the same.

_(He always thinks they’ll get better.)_

But the ending never changes.

_(Nothing ever changes.)_

And Nyx always wakes wishing it was he who was dead.

 

* * *

 

“Nyx! Watch out!” he hears, as chaos reigns a maelstrom of fire and blood around him.

At your warning, Nyx pivots to plunge his dagger deep into the daemon that emerged from his blind sinking the annealed steel of his kukri past its crustaceous shell and into its vulnerable flesh. As he turns to shout his thanks, time crawls to a sickly slow stop at the scene that unfolds meters away.

_“No!”_

Everything ceases to matter and it's as if time itself stands still. Nyx feels nothing, not the thrashing varmint as it gouges its sharp talons into his arm; he hears nothing, not the metallic din of Magitek units falling from the sky; and he sees nothing, except for the jerk of your body as the daemon’s spindly leg pierces your abdomen.

_No. Nonononono. Not again. No._

His body moves on its own accord, adrenaline rushing through his veins like wildfire as he forces a path towards you with disregard to his own wellbeing. With his left hand, he hurls his kukri far into the distance, materializing with shattering urgency twenty meters from your fallen form, and with his right, he strikes indiscriminately at enemies unconcerned for the result – dead or alive it doesn't matter. All that matters was reaching you in time.

_I have to save her._

As the second leg descends, Nyx lets out a strangled yell and unleashes a thundering shockwave of magic that reaches the daemon before it could strike again. But the lightning hits you too and he's cursing as he watches you twitch haplessly on the ground.

_I need to save her._

Throwing his dagger into the creature, he rematerializes upon it’s back and drives his blade deep into its spine before slicing off the leg that impales your body. Nyx is covered head to toe in gore by the time he’s on his hands and knees, deep in a pool of mire that he worries is your blood. The crimson that seeps through the thick leather of your uniform and paints it a deep scarlet red does nothing to assuage his fears. There are a thousand ways Nyx has imagined himself dying, but his soul shattering into a million little pieces as he watches you die was never one of them.

Cursing, he presses his hands on your abdomen to stymie the flow, but it’s in vain and the blood seeps freely through his fingers like water. Gently, he cradles you in his arms, patting your cheek in a desperate attempt to rouse you. Your eyes open blearily, an unnatural vitreous sheen to them, but they’re cognizant enough to recognize the man looking down at them.

“Hey, Nyx,” you say with a wavering smile, “Can’t be the hero every time, huh?”

“Hey. Hey, it’s going to be ok, little one.”

Your laughter is fragile. “Don’t call me that…” you jest as your lids begin to close.

“Hey, no. Princess, wake up.”

“Nyx, you have to let me go.”

“You can’t– you can’t leave. I _love_ you,” he says desperately into your hair.

But, you don’t respond and a litany of ‘no’ is all that escapes his lips as the crash of reality threatens to drown him just as it did years ago.

“I love you. _Please_ ,” he begs as he presses his trembling lips to your forehead, gripping as if you’d dissipate with the wind if he loosened his hold just for one second. “ _I love you, I love you, I love you,_ ” he chants like it is a prayer that can raise the dead.

A kiss on your lids. A kiss on your cheeks. As kiss on your lips.

Nothing.

His shoulders shake as he sits hopelessly amidst the chaos.

_Please…don't leave._

 

* * *

 

Nyx wakes with a jolt in a foreign bed. He’s still in uniform, but it’s torn open and he can feel the crust of dried blood flake as he moves. Listening closely, he hears the dull beep of the heart monitor and the faint whoosh of the respirator. He’s in the infirmary. Touching his face, he finds it damp with tears.

“Finally awake, huh, hero? Or should I say sleeping beauty? You had us worried sick,” Libertus says as he helps his friend sit upright.

“Is she…?” The rest of the question catches in his throat, whether from the prolonged disuse of his voice or from the finality of the statement he fears true, Nyx isn’t quite sure.

“Yeah…” Libertus trails off distractedly as he tries to get the attending nurse's attention.

Nyx knew the answer before he even asks, but the confirmation still makes his chest seize with a needle-sharp pain that causes him double over. In his mind’s eye, he can see it all again. All that blood; the dullness of your eyes, the quiver of your last breath. He hides his face in his hands as the burning in his eyes threatens to overflow.

“Dammit,” he chokes out, “I should’ve gotten there sooner. If only–”

“What are you talking about?”

“She’s d– _gone_. Gone because of me.”

Even without hearing a name, Libertus knows who he's talking about. After all, there's only one person left on this godforsaken planet that could have Nyx worked up to such a ridiculous frenzy. He fights the urge to roll his eyes when he says, “What? Did you hit your head or something? She’s _fine_.”

Nyx grabs a fistful of Libertus' shirt, pulling him close until their noses are just touching. “She’s _what_? Where is she?”

“Outside with Crowe getting some air. I'll go get–”

Nyx releases his hold on his friend and with one swift movement, dislodges the electrodes from his chest and yanks the IV from his hand.

“Woah, woah, easy there, buddy.”

But Nyx is already striding past the nurse and out of the infirmary, so impatient in his need to see with his own eyes that you're alive, he doesn’t notice the bandages around his abdomen staining red from his movements.

Libertus stares after him, shaking his head. “Dumbass.”

 

* * *

 

Nyx feels his world spinning as he stumbles out of the building.

_She’s ok. She’s **alive**._

The how and why doesn’t matter. He just needs so badly to see for himself, that when he catches view of you sitting by the riverbank, safe and whole, laughing at something Crowe said, his body deflates with relief. He slumps against the doorframe as the adrenaline subsides to the pain of his injuries. Nyx blearily contemplates returning to bed, but Crowe spots him out of the corner of her eyes and runs up to catch him before he could retreat.

“You idiot!” she reprimands, hitting him lightly on the arm. “If you’re going to be bleeding all over the place, you might as well do what you were set out on doing.”

“What?”

She puts her hand on her hip in exasperation. “You shouldn’t be up, but since you are, you might as well go see your little princess. She was by your side the entire time you were out. I only _just_ managed to pry her from you; if I let you turn around and leave without so much as a ‘hello’ she’d give me hell.”

“I– yeah,” he sighs, running his hand through his disheveled hair. “Thanks for looking after her while I was out.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re not the only one who loves her, you know.” Crowe smirks at the faint blush that dusts across his cheeks but hardens her expression when she remembers the despondent worry Nyx had them in. “But seriously, you pull another stunt like that again, Nyx, I’ll make sure it’s your last.”

 

* * *

 

The moment Crowe leaves, you rush to meet Nyx halfway and fling your arms around him and despite his injury, he catches you and swings you around in exhilaration before gently letting you down. The ache in his side throbs with renewed vigor, but it seems so minuscule when you're standing before him smiling and happy.

“I thought I lost you,” you both breathe at the same time. 

“Wait. What are you–”

Your question is cut off as he steps back and yanks your shirt up to examine your abdomen. You stiffen at the contact of his cold, gloveless hand upon your belly, soft and hard at the same time as it slides across your navel in disbelief. The tentativeness of his touch makes something twinge in your chest. He treats you as if you were spun glass that would break under the slightest twitch of his fingers. 

“You're not hurt?” The wonder in his voice just a little bit breathtaking and you wonder what has him so riled.

“No...” you answer distractedly as he continues his examination of your bare skin. The way he's looks at you now, as if you were everything and the whole world rolled into one, has your heart pounding so loudly you’re positive he can hear it too. For once you think you want something _more_ that you’re not sure he’d be eager to reciprocate. If only he'd look at you like that always.

As his fingers ghost across the sensitive skin of your waist, goosebumps rise as incriminating evidence of your anticipation that you’re far too embarrassed for him to discover. "I'm fine," you insist, pushing his hand away. “Why would I be hurt when it’s you who got hurt coming to my rescue. _Again_.”

Sighing, he drops his hands from your waist, only to bring one up to palm your cheek.

“I... I saw you die.”

His eyes flicker down to meet yours and from where you stand, despite the hairline capillaries that mar his whites, they are impossibly blue. They sparkle unnaturally and it’s only upon closer inspection do you realize it’s from unshed moisture that clings at his lashes. To see him like this, hurting and vulnerable, pains you and you’re seized by an outrageous urge to kiss him, to kiss everything away, but even in your head, it sounds ludicrous. Nyx doesn’t want you that way, you're nothing more than a little sister to him. So instead, you lean into his touch and press your lips into the palm of his hand as you quietly ask, “Nightmare?”

“Yeah,” he sighs out, “I think so. I thought I’d lost you and I– _if_ I had lost you I wouldn’t… Just promise me, princess, promise you’d never leave.”

 _I won't_ , you want to shout.  _You mean too much for me_ _to leave you behind_. But you're a coward and the only thing you know to do is to cry.

Nyx ghosts a thumb across your cheek, catching a stray tear. The moment teeters on the verge of intimacy, his hand upon your face and his face looming ever closer, lips just barely brushing against yours, when he abruptly wobbles forward head butting you, the cocktail of drugs coursing through his system finally too much for his body. Laughing, you try to prop him up, only to find yourself kneeling over and stumbling onto the grass with him on top.

The clumsiness of his fall washes the somberness away and Nyx finally grins from above you, blurting out in his mirth, “I love you, you know that, princess?”

Your body stills as you peer curiously up at him. In the years you’ve known him, you’ve never known him utter those words to anyone but Selena. You’ve always known he’s loved you the same, but to hear it has you beaming from ear to ear.

“ _What_ did you say?”

You enjoy the look of ‘oh- _shit_ ’ that flickers across his face. In his panic, Nyx responds lamely, “I, uh, love you. Like a sister. You know, like Liber– uhhh, Crowe.”

Grinning, you poke him in the chest. “Well, _duh_ , I already know you love me–” How fast the color that drains from his face is comical. “–like a sister. Wow, the great ‘heroes-don't-have-soft-feelings-Ulric’ just declared his love for little ol’ me. Do you have a fever? Do I need to check your temperature? Get the doc?”

A grin splits across his face at your jibe.

“Hey. You look here little one–”

“Ugh, don’t call me that.”

“Fine. Little terror.”

“Jerkwad!”

“Chocobo turd.”

“Nif lover.”

 _“Princess_.”

“ _Hero_.”

“You didn’t,” he gasps in mock outrage.

“I _did_.”

“Yeah? Well, you’re lucky I’m injured or you’d be in for a bad time,” Nyx chuckles as he moves to lay next to you on the grassy knoll.

“Yeah? Well, you're lucky I'm feeling sorry for you or _you'd_ be the one in for a bad time." You pause a bit, taking a deep breath before saying, "Since we’re sharing gross feelings. I love you too, Nyx.”

The star-bright smile that breaks across his face is so blinding you turn away, flushed, to stare up at the clouds. Seeing him this deliriously happy makes you wonder why you never said the words before either.

Nyx intertwines his fingers with yours and a rare sort of peace settles over you two. He's come to you many times before, panicked and shaking from unearthed visions of Galahd he's tried to keep hidden within the recess of his soul, but you find you'd much rather he dream of you, so that at the very least relief is the look upon his face instead of self loathing and guilt. 

He has said many times before that you always how to bring him back to earth after a bad dream. You’re not exactly sure why this is, but you were each other’s tether, and without it, you’re sure you’d both lose yourselves to the ghosts of your pasts.

Softly, he calls your name until you turn to face him. Eyes crinkled with warmth Nyx says, “I’m never going to let you go.”

Maybe it was the warmth of the sun beating down upon your skin or the nightingales that chirped happily in the trees nearby. Whatever it was, come what may, you’d hold onto the warmth of this moment, even in the darkest of nights.

 _I love you, more than you’d ever know_. 


End file.
